Interview: Danielle on making up for lost time | LOUD Bristol Issue Three
Posted on: 23 Dec 2021This article was first published in the third issue of LOUD Bristol, 365Bristol's dedicated music magazine. Read LOUD Issue Three and browse our first two editions here.
Danielle
Internationally-renowned DJ Danielle was stopped in her tracks when the global club scene came to a grinding halt last year. Here she talks pandemic struggles, postponed shows and picking up where she left off.
Danielle Doobay is a force. London-born, Bristol-based, the multi-talented DJ, illustrator and tutor has carved out a formidable reputation for herself over the past decade with hard-hitting sets, vibrant artwork and contributions to the evergreen Mix Nights project. Known to spin everything from ground-shaking techno to electro, dub, house and more, Danielle’s atmospheric sets play out like a fleeting peek into the future, stacked with techy bleeps and beats and seamlessly transcending a broad spectrum of sounds. More often than not, regardless of where the party is, she’ll sneak at least a handful of Bristol-made tracks into the mix.
Danielle’s musical journey started in her teenage years, working at London’s Phonica Records when dubstep was permeating underground venues up and down the country. Travelling between the capital and Bristol, two major hubs for the genre in its early days, she was exposed to an innovative new world of music, which left a lasting impression.
“I think I’ve always been drawn to that Bristol sound,” Danielle says when we connect for a chat on Zoom. “All the dubstep nights I went to in those days were incredible. There were a lot of artists that I didn’t actually know at that time but always kind of had a connection to.” A permanent move to the Westcountry quickly followed, and Danielle wasted no time diving headfirst into a flourishing Bristol underground. “Once I eventually moved I just became friends with all these people who I’d only known about musically,” she recalls, “then once you’re mates with them and they’re sending you tunes it all just kind of happens.” Simple as that.
Today, the in-demand DJ consistently appears on lineups alongside fellow Bristol alumni Hodge, Bruce and Batu among others, and has played some of the UK’s best-loved club venues. Alongside her sets for long-term friends and affiliates Livity Sound, she designs and produces event posters for the label as part of her extensive portfolio of illustration. I’m catching up with Danielle during a busy run of bookings, off the back of a set for revered Berlin radio station HÖR and ahead of a trip to London to appear at Team Love’s new festival, Waterworks. Glad to be back in the swing of things, she tells me that a sudden lack of direction and routine made lockdown a real challenge in early 2020.
“Right at the beginning, I was finding it hard to engage with music. I was like ‘I don’t wanna hear a thing’ - just a ‘keep me away’ sort of thing. There was a month or two of taking a real back seat”
“Right at the beginning, I was finding it hard to engage with music. I was like ‘I don’t wanna hear a thing’ – just a ‘keep me away’ sort of thing. There was a month or two of taking a real back seat,” she remembers. “Me and my agent had worked really hard on getting a lot of shows booked in for 2020. After a long time of saying yes to everything, I felt like I’d finally gotten to a point where I could be a bit more picky and try to hold out for certain venues or certain festivals. Once things were just completely put on pause, it was tough to deal with.”
Of course, for someone so musically-minded, a hiatus can only last so long. After those tricky first few weeks, Danielle eased herself back into the mix, keeping up to date with new music and picking up jobs with Bristol’s Idle Hands and London-based label Origins Sound. “Eventually I was like ‘actually, there is still music coming out, there’s still loads happening’, and decided that I needed to keep on top of it. After getting over that initial slump I’ve been quite good with consistently looking for new stuff,” she explains.
On to a return to normality, then, and today Danielle is right back in amongst it, playing out on a regular basis. She’s managed to secure rescheduled sets at many of the events she was booked for pre-Covid, and crucially, she’s been able to revive her involvement in Mix Nights, a project set up to address the drastic gender imbalance on Bristol’s electronic music scene. Part of a team of founding members led by Saffron Records, Danielle has adopted a mentoring role, and oversees the development of the graduates taking part in Mix Nights courses. In five years the project has grown from a small, informal community initiative to a fully-fledged, professionally-run music course, and is rightly lauded for its positive influence on the Bristol scene.
Danielle is an integral part of Bristol’s Mix Nights initiative. Having helped set up the project in 2016, she’s currently involved as a course tutor and mentor. Photos: Giulia Spadafora
“It was just an idea at first,” Danielle says, “kind of like a social – we’d get together and have a chat about the DJ equipment and have a practice. Once we realised it was getting really popular and was actually quite necessary, we worked hard to build a proper syllabus and develop it into the eight-week course it is now.” After just half a decade, Mix Nights has expanded into London and Nottingham, helping to launch the careers of a new generation of female and non-binary DJs and music tech specialists.
“A lot of the Bristol scene is really about who you know, especially early on,” Danielle tells me. “The only reason I am where I am is because I got a job in a record shop early on and said yes to all the opportunities that came my way. That doesn’t always happen for everyone. Those connections can be really hard to come across, especially as a woman, so this sort of project is vital. We’ve had lots of women who have met on the course then go on to start their own collectives, or secured their own gigs at venues and festivals. When we started doing this we had no idea it’d create the amount of opportunities it has.”
Danielle says she can see the impact Mix Nights has had on the wider Bristol scene, too, and feels the project has played its part in an increased focus on diversity and inclusivity at events and venues across the city. “I think it’s just in people’s consciousness now. At the start it was something we had to tell people, like ‘you should be thinking about this, this is something you should be aware of’. Now, we don’t have to say it - you’ve got all these amazing people out there that know how to DJ. People know that they need more diverse lineups now, and they know they’ll be called out on it if they don’t.”
Armed with a renewed sense of direction post-lockdown, Danielle Doobay is fully focussed on making up for lost time. Already recognised as a driving force of British electronic music and poised to embark on an Australian tour and further North American and European tours in 2022, you can be certain her stock will continue to rise in years to come.
Main Image: Kasia Zacharko
Head to Issuu to read the full third issue of LOUD Bristol, featuring an array of interviews with renowned artists, venues, labels and more.
Article by:
Editor - 365Bristol.com & LOUD Magazine
Matt is a Journalism graduate and writer, passionate about supporting Bristol music, art and independent business. Get in touch via email at matt@365bristol.com.
